


Measure of a Turian

by Conrad_freaking_Verner



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 20:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11238585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Conrad_freaking_Verner/pseuds/Conrad_freaking_Verner
Summary: "Failed C-Sec officer, Vigilante...and they want my opinion on how to fix all of this?"





	1. Turmoil

**Author's Note:**

> Before I say anything, I want to mention that this is my first fanfiction (have mercy), AND I haven't written anything more than 140 characters long since high school, seven years ago, so please forgive me if things don't flow well. I also wrote this in an afternoon because it was stuck in my head and I was literally losing sleep over it on a Sunday morning. Go me.
> 
> There's a lot I want to say about WHY I wrote this, but I'll put it at the end of the next chapter.
> 
> Hope you enjoy reading!
> 
> (This is set sometime in ME3 after the Cerberus coup but before the Citadel DLC)

Failed C-Sec Officer.

Vigilante.

_Expert Reaper Advisor._

Bakara once said that wisdom comes from pain.  I don’t know if I believe that, because we’d all be damn wise...and well...I’m anything but wise.

Shepard, though...well.  You know her.  She somehow always swoops in to save the day in a triumphant blaze of glory with charm and charisma to spare.  She even came back from the dead to save my sorry ass.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen her make a bad call, and that’s an extraordinary feat, considering that she has been the driving force in this war for years.  

Huh.  Maybe that saying has some truth in it, after all.

But me?  Ha.  I stumble over my words every time Shepard is even in the same room.  I find myself at a loss whenever Victus calls me, looking for advice.  Hell, the only blaze of glory I’ve ever had was the damn funeral pyre for my men.  Ten good men and one goddamn traitor.  And I couldn’t even bring myself to...

Well.

There was the explosion that blew half of my face off, along with the last shreds of my dignity.  Some blaze of glory that was.

Shepard says that the scars make me look like a badass, but…

After...everything, the first thing she said was that I was “always ugly”.  Hell, I believe her words were “slap some face paint on it and no one will even notice”.  She was joking, of course, but I’ve found that jokes like that tend to have an element of truth to them.  And why wouldn’t this particular joke have some truth to it?  Apparently Turians look like some old Earth creature called “raptors” or something, and all of my extranet searches turned up nothing but ugly sons of bitches...and turians.

How humans managed to evolve into Earth’s apex predator is beyond me, but I digress.

So how, despite all that, am I supposed to believe that Shepard actually wants **me**?  A failed cop turned vigilante turned scarred “reaper advisor” that looks like something out of a bad horror vid?

I see how Kaidan looks at her.  Jimmy too.  Hell, practically half of the crew looks like they’re stranded on Therum, they’re so thirsty.

(I actually feel particularly proud of that line.  Kasumi explained what “thirsty” meant after she and Shepard went to that “society party” on Bekenstein.  Kelly couldn’t keep her eyes off of Shepard.  Neither could Zaeed.  Not that I blame them.  Have you _seen_ that dress?  Have you seen _Shepard_ in that dress?  It’s almost criminal, if you ask me.)

Point is, Shepard has options.  She could find something closer to home.  A lot closer to home. And I’m not sure why she says that she doesn’t want that.  What do I have to offer her?  I joke about women finding scars attractive because that’s the only way I can cope at this point, but…

How can any woman, turian or human, look at this face and see anything but a failure?

I know I can’t.  I was fairly vain about my looks before, but now, every time I look in the mirror, I’m reminded of my long list of failures.

I can’t even be a good son or brother properly, either.  My mother wasted away while I was on Omega, looking for an absolution in merc blood.  My sister put aside her dreams and her future, in the sake of familial duty.  My father retired to be with both of them.  I still stayed on Omega.

And after all of that, all I have are scars and funeral pyres.  And a dead mother.

She could barely remember me when I finally made it back to Palaven.

So when Shepard says that she needs somebody that she can trust, it doesn’t answer my questions.  Why trust someone that has only ever been a failure?

I can almost understand why she said that when we were on a Cerberus ship, with a Cerberus AI watching us, and Cerberus operatives walking the halls, but this isn’t a Cerberus ship any more.  And that was just...stress relief.

But she can trust Kaidan.  I mean, sure, he burned her pretty hard on Horizon, and apparently wasn’t particularly trusting when they were in the archives on Mars, but she can trust him now.  She can trust Vega, too--and as far as I know, he hasn’t questioned her loyalties, even when she was “relieved of duty” on Earth.

I just...I just don’t know what she wants.  And even if I knew what she wanted, I don’t even know how to give her that.  I mean, I’m not what a human would usually consider attractive...even before the accident.  My attempts at seduction were terrible, at best, and hell, I even told her that I just wanted something to go right for once. What a downer that is.  The exact opposite of what blowing off steam should be.

I mean, the actual blowing off steam part was fine--more than fine on my part, actually--but I wanted something _more_.  Something real and deep and...not just blowing off steam.

So when I showed her that bottle of wine I bought in Cipritine, I worried that I overstepped.  She seemed more shocked than anything, but Spirits, I don’t want to fuck this up, too.  I want more, obviously, but I just don’t want to lose what I’ve already gotten, and hell if I know how I got it in the first place.

So here I am, hiding in the Main Battery, trying to keep up with everything.  Cracking jokes to try to hide my insecurities, obsessively calibrating the main guns so that we have a chance to defend ourselves in the event that the reapers finally catch up to us...because _I can’t lose her again._

Maybe...maybe Joker’s right.  Maybe I am overthinking everything and I just need to talk to her.  Clear the air, whatever that means.  (Humans have such confusing, yet oddly charming phrases for everything, it seems.)

I guess that even if she doesn’t feel the same way, it won’t really matter in the end.

I’m already miserable anyway.


	2. Resolution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Set Immediately after the Leviathan DLC)

“I guess that’s what love does...turns a guy like me into a nervous wreck with something to lose and the aim to make sure he doesn’t.”

* * *

Looking back on things, I wish that I hadn’t waited so long to talk to her.

Today was one of those days where you realize just how tenuous your grip on life is, and how precious your time with the people you love is.  Watching your girlfriend jump into the abyss to stand face-to-face with a god is hard enough, but knowing that you can’t follow her--that no one could--is sobering.

She has the weight of the galaxy on her shoulders, and I was taking my time with her for granted, hiding in the Main Battery because I was worried about _rejection_.

I guess it seems easy now, now that I know how things will turn out.  Hell, now I even see what she saw in me--still sees in me.

Where I saw scars and broken bodies, she saw tenacity in the face of failure.

Where I saw an inability to follow through with justice, she saw an act of mercy.

And...what I saw as weakness and fear, she saw vulnerability and honesty.  Something more than just blowing off steam.

Hell if I understand why she took the time to even look at a star-struck C-Sec officer, but...I haven’t ever seen her make a bad call.  Don’t see why this would be different.

It’s humbling.  No Shepard without Vakarian.

I always blew her off when she said that she couldn’t do things without me.  I mean, she’s _Commander Shepard_.  I saw the vids from the Skyllian Blitz before I met her.  There were _comics_ , even.  I own the whole set (Collector’s Edition!).  

But my fascination aside, her actions on Elysium were something any good turian would respect.  Holding the line, at any cost.  A small, female human, rallying the troops and holding her own against an entire army.  That’s not something you hear about every day.

And that human says that she couldn’t win this war without me.

It really changes your perspective on things.

I still get a little self-conscious about my scars, obviously, but honestly, I don’t care as much anymore.

Do you want to know why?

Because, despite the fact that I’m a failed C-Sec officer and a scarred vigilante, she turns to me for advice and comfort, somehow.  And even as sappy as it is, that’s enough for me.

Maybe Bakara was right after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I was replaying ME3 last night (because I apparently like being sad), and I noticed something interesting:
> 
> It seems like Garrus' opinion of himself isn't particularly favorable at the beginning of the game. He talks about being a "failed C-Sec officer", and how his scars are only attractive to Krogan women enough times for me to really wonder if he actually means what he says. (His speech during the romance scene in ME2 kinda confirms this, because what self-assured person says "I want something to go right for once"?)
> 
> But the real kicker for me was right after I picked him up on Menae, because I did something different this time. 
> 
> Normally, if Shep says that she's interested in continuing the relationship, he hauls out a bottle of wine--even though the Normandy hasn't been to the Citadel (with him aboard) yet. That means he bought it AND held onto it for a significant amount of time, and he was hoping she'd be interested enough that he'd get a chance to use it.
> 
> BUT! If she says that she's NOT interested, he acts like things are fine and that he isn't upset...until he says something along the lines of, "I understand. We're in a war and you don't need distractions." Shep does say that he wasn't "ever just a distraction", but that almost makes it worse because he's got THAT DAMN BOTTLE OF WINE HIDDEN SOMEWHERE AND YOU SAID NO LIKE A HEARTLESS MONSTER.
> 
> So yeah. My gaddamn little heart broke after that line. 
> 
> ...so I reloaded the save because he is my space boyfriend and I can't deal with those feels.


End file.
